Edward Low

Edward "Ned" Low (1690-1724) was a British pirate who operated off New England, the Azores, and the Caribbean. Known for his cruelty (in one episode, he fed a Portuguese captain his own boiled lips; in another, he killed 53 Spanish prisoners with a cutlass), Low was eventually overthrown in a mutiny on the "Merry Christmas" and hung by the French in Martinique.

Biography
Edward Low was a troublemaker in his youth, pickpocketing as well as playing card games with guards at the House of Commons. In 1710, he left for New England after his father was hung as a thief, and in 1722 he became a pirate in Boston, Massachusetts in the Thirteen Colonies, where he made a home for himself.

He took over the brigantine "Fancy" and raided Nova Scotia in June 1722, using tactics such as hoisting false colours to fool enemies. He captured a Portuguese ship and called it "Rose Pink", but forty leagues south of Suriname it was capsized by a storm.

On 25 January 1723 Low captured "Nostra Signiora de Victoria", a Portuguese ship, and showed cruelty by cutting off the Portuguese captain's lips and forcing him to eat them while boiled. He also burnt his French cook once, and killed 53 Spanish prisoners with a cutless. He was called "a maniac and a brute" by his own men for his abuse of prisoners and his cruelty towards his targets. On 10 June 1723, however, his ship "Ranger" was captured by HMS Greyhound, a British ship, and he fled with only a small crew on "Fancy". By late 1723 his crew deserted him, and in 1724 he faced a mutiny on his sole ship "Merry Christmas". He was saved by a French man-of-war, but when the authorities found out who he was, he was hung in Martinique.